Over the weekend, I was asked to photograph a graduation party at The Ritz, a recently renovated music venue in downtown Scranton, Pennsylvania. I was not at all expecting a band to be playing there, so I was very excited to be photographing them. The band that was playing was called Drowning Kelly, and they were more of a metal/rock genre.

The biggest struggle I had taking these photos was the lighting. I have a Canon Rebel T7, and it sometimes struggles with low-light conditions. I kept getting a lot of noise in these photos, so I had to experiment with the denoise setting in Lightroom Classic. It was a tedious process because on my laptop, it looked like the photos were fine, but when I looked at them on my phone, I could see the noise.

Overall, I had a great time taking these photos. I had never experienced a show like this, so it was a new experience for me. This also opened up my experience to photograph future events at The Ritz as I talked with the owner, and he told me to reach out to them on Facebook or Instagram, and I will be put on a local band photographers list.

Along with The Ritz, I am going to photograph my first music festival in September! I will be photographing the All Good Things are Happening Festival in Scranton. I am also going to photograph for Scranton Girls Rock in July for their summer camp and concert. I am so excited for these new experiences.

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